


birthdays are for kids

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Birthday, Canon Disabled Character, F/M, First Time, Fluff, Food, POV Phil Coulson, Romance, Team Bonding, Team Feels, coulson feels, everybody loves Coulson, food festivals, specially Skye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 17:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4314006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team has come up with a great idea to celebrate Coulson's birthday. Well, let's be honest, it was Skye's idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	birthdays are for kids

"Am I being kidnapped?" he asks. "Is that why you needed Bobbi?"

In the darkness the laughter sings closer to him than it really is.

"You can take the blindfold off now," Skye tells him, laughter still tinging her tone.

They are in Lola, parked in some quiet backstreet. He knew they were in a city already – the humming of traffic around. A big city. He knows it.

"So where are we?" he asks.

Skye shifts in the driver's seat, smirking.

"You're the spy, you tell me," she says.

It's not too difficult, even though she took care to park somewhere with no recognizable landmarks in sight.

"Taking into account the flight length before we met up with you and we've been driving for less than twenty minutes...New York?"

"You're good."

"Where are we?"

"New York."

"I mean – Why?"

"Because it's your birthday," she tells him.

"Skye."

She fixes him a look that admits no contest. He was about to say that this is not the time to be celebrating this kind of mundane stuff but – nevermind.

"At first we wanted to buy you something," she says. "The team. We tried to figure out what the perfect present for you would be. And with the whole hand thing and the Simmons thing and the joining the two SHIELDs together thing you haven't had a moment to yourself."

"None of us have."

He thinks about Tahiti, of course. That was the last break he had and it wasn't even real. 

"Yeah, but you are the director. And I wonder when was the last time you did something fun."

" _Fun_?"

"Something you liked, just because you liked it. Free time, a hobby," she says. Oh those. He used to have those. Hobbies. 

"So there's this food festival," she reveals at last.

"Ah."

"Not very original, but we figured that what you would want to do, if you had the chance."

She gets out of the car and Coulson follows her. They take a moment, leaning against Lola quietly.

"It's not far," Skye explains. "Was it a terrible idea?"

She looks at him like this is important.

"No, I could use a breather, actually," Coulson replies. And he says it to appease Skye but it's true. The idea of taking the afternoon off and stroll among food stands seems like the nicest thing he has heard in a long time. He can feel himself smiling a bit as he looks ahead. It's not easy for him to admit he wanted some time-off, even if it's just his birthday.

"If you don't want company I can take a hike," Skye says tactfully. "This is your scene. I thought maybe you wouldn't want to be alone..."

"And did you throw a dice to see who got to babysit me?"

Skye chuckles. "Babysit you, yeah. Like I wouldn't volunteer."

Coulson raises an amused eyebrow at her.

"Like we wouldn't all v-volunter," she corrects. It's not that easy wrong-footing Skye.

He puts her out of her misery. "I appreciate the company. Come on, you lead."

They start walking. There's no hurry and he thinks both feel a bit awkward for it, not knowing what to do with the luxury of leisure.

He doesn't know the city well, it takes him a bit to realize they are in Brooklyn. The area is surprisingly lively for a weekday and it's not at all like Coulson remembers it. When was the last time he's been in New York, apart from that fateful quick trip to the then-Stark Tower? He tenses involuntarily at the thought. It's been a couple of years, still, one doesn't usually get over being dead that easily. And it's his birthday, he remembers, and he shouldn't even be having one at all.

"You okay?" Skye asks, noticing.

Coulson forces himself to relax, remember why they are here, remember he's up for it, and be kind to Skye.

"You're from the city, right?" he asks.

She gestures. "Not _here_ , but yes, Hell's Kitchen."

"And you don't want to swing by?" he asks.

"God no," she says with a sharp hiss. Then explains: "I don't have the greatest memories of that place."

"Right."

He remembers that he was in his hometown recently. He couldn't process it then, maybe that's why it's coming back to him right now. Too busy trying to stop Cal from harming local kids and watching Skye break her own bones and collapse on the same football field where his father used to coach the local team. It feels like a million years ago. It was only a few months back. Unlike Skye he does have great memories of his hometown, that's why it was so weird to see it turned into a place of threat, something like a nightmare. He'd like to go back some time for a proper visit. But he doesn't have excuses for that, or even reasons. He doesn't have any family, just a couple of graves he hasn't visited in over ten years.

They turn a corner and Coulson sees the place Skye wanted to show him, the food festival. 

There are a lot of people gathering around the food trucks and stands.

Normal people.

People who don't get to come here as a special treat, a parenthesis between instances of trying to save the world and trying not to get killed by that same world. People with families and regular jobs and homes they will go to after this, homes that are not secret underground bases.

Skye looks at him but misreads what he's thinking.

"I asked May if you had any trouble with crowds, just in case. But I figure you'd preferred them right now. You won't attract attention," she gives his arm in the sling an expressive look.

That's incredibly thoughtful. But his team is, incredibly toughtful. Skye? Double that. Probably because she is not used to people being toughtful with her, so she understand the value of that simple kindness. It's not something natural, it's something drilled into her by life. Coulson feels bad, wonders if he himself is a thoughtful man. He's observant, but it's not the same. And even that hasn't always been true: he wasn't observant when it came to Hydra, when it came to old friends working against him behind his back, he wasn't observant enough to notice Akela Amador was cracking under his well-meaning pressure, he wasn't observant enough to protect his team from Ward.

"I'm okay with crowds," he says and they dip into this one.

The whole scene is different from what he remembers. Food festivals weren't that big when he still had time for them. They were mostly local. And they didn't have so many health options. Coulson guesses he should go for those, healthy stuff. But he doesn't feel like thinking about his cholesterol right now. It's his birthday, he feels like eating something disgusting and self-indulgent.

But birthdays are for kids, he keeps telling himself. 

"So where do we start?" Skye asks. "I've eaten from trucks before but I've never been to a proper food festival."

"You normally look around on a first swipe and then decide what you want. That's what I do. What I used to do," he corrects himself.

"A method," she says, laughing at him. "You're so wound up."

They approach the first stand. It's green juices. He watches Skye descend upon the free samples with delight.

"Researching for this was surreal," she tells him. "I looked through _every_ food festival going on today, whatever the state. Do you know how many peach festivals does this country have? Just for that, for _peaches_."

"You didn't have to go through all that trouble for me."

"Aw, come on, we were all happy to."

He has to admit when Bobbi shoved him into the Quinjet he had other ideas in mind, far more mortifying than spending the afternoon eating street food with Skye.

"I was dreading a surprise party," he confesses.

"I know you were," Skye says. "But we know you. We wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable in your birthday."

Skye keeps saying " _we_ " as if Coulson couldn't tell this has been, mostly, her idea.

"I'm just not a birthday party kind of guy," he confesses. Not that he's ever had one since he was young. Friendships among SHIELD agents are about saving each other's asses and patching each other's wounds, not about birthday cake. A few rounds would normally do for celebration.

They decide to separate for a few minutes and get whatever they want on their own.

"Oh, that looks good, what is it?" Skye.

"Something from Egypt," he says. It's healthy, but not _too healthy_. "Lentils, vermicelli, caramelized onion."

"God I love caramelized onion."

"Do you want to try?"

"Yeah, can we share?"

They share his pot of rice and then Coulson watches her eat a hot dog very unselfconsciously, licking mustard off her fingers.

It's nice seeing Skye relax. If he has been busy Skye hasn't been taking it easy, either. She seems to be as excited as him about the whole food fest, maybe more. Like she's the one having a birthday. Suddenly she grabs his arm with enthusiasm, pulling him towards the next target.

"Do you like tacos? Of course you like tacos, everyone likes tacos."

Coulson approaches the stand, exchanging greetings in Spanish.

"Dos cochinita pibil," he says. "Muchas gracias."

"Muchos gracias," Skye repeats when they get their food.

Okay, so maybe he was trying to impress Skye a bit with that. He remembers what that felt like, wanting to impress Skye, back when they first met. When she had been mysterious and he had been charming and they had no idea how entwinned their lives would get. How entwinned their lives already were. He doesn't want to think about that part too much.

"It's not _muchos_ , it's _muchas_ ," Coulson points out, taking on fake airs, all amused. "In Spanish almost every word has a gender, even articles."

Skye snorts at his pedantry.

"Well, excuse me, Mr I Read Don Quixote And You Didn't."

He chuckles. "I never read it."

"What?!"

"I never read _Don Quixote_."

"But you said– about the windmills–"

"I know the story. I know what happens. It's one of those books I'd always told myself I read if I had the time. Big, important books."

Maybe it's because he never went to college but Coulson has always felt veneration for Big and Important Books. He always told himself he should make time for reading, and not just technical stuff so he can understand official reports when it comes down to the science. When was the last time he sat down with a good novel? He remembers Audrey's flat suddenly, full of books, big, important books, Pulitzer Prize winners. It had seemed so normal to Coulson then, that kind of life where one reads Pulitzer Prize winners.

"Maybe your birthday present should have been a trip to the library then," Skye comments, making him snap out of it.

Normal lives, food festivals and big, important books, have their appeal but Coulson doesn't feel the sting of longing he used to. He looks at the people around him and Skye and he doesn't regret not being one of them. He's okay. Well, not entirely and not _entirely_ yet, but he's mostly okay. Enough that, right now, he wouldn't trade places with this Brooklyn lot.

"No, this is great," he tells Skye. "Thank you."

She looks away, shyly. "You're welcome."

An hour later things are winding down for them.

They are in Dessert Mode.

Skye tries to get some free food by telling everybody "It's this guy's birthday" but of course Coulson's fake ID doesn't have his real birth day so when someone contests the story they walk away. It's fun.

Now Coulson is eating strawberries with white chocolate. Skye is trying something much more horrific.

"It's a donut but it's also a croissant," she exclaims. "I've been working too hard, Coulson. I didn't even know these things existed. I have to get out more often."

"It sounds terrible."

"It's two different pastries _combined_. This is the future."

This is the future, he thinks, pensive, following Skye through the crowds.

"You go away in your head a lot today," Skye comments. "Is it the birthday? It's not that bad."

"No, I was just – it makes you think, that's all."

"I guess," she says, dropping her gaze for a moment. 

"Sorry about... going away," he says. The last thing he'd want is for her to think he's not having a good time. He's having a great time with her, mainly because he's with her. Why doesn't he just tell her that?

"Your favourite birthday," she says.

"What?"

"When was your favourite birthday? You have to have one."

"When I turned eight. Because that was the last one with my father," he says. Skye's eyes cloud a bit but she holds his gaze. "Of course he made me work on Lola that whole summer, so I was kind of sore with him."

"Ouch," Skye winces. "I bet Andrew _loved_ hearing about that."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry, it sounds really hard."

He shakes his head and smiles, carrying on.

"The one when I turned seventeen," he adds. "That one was nice. I went camping with my mom."

"You wen't camping with your mom? _Wow_."

Coulson chuckles. He hadn't thought about this in years. He normally avoided thinking about his mother. Today it feels comforting, it feels almost _good_ to remember her.

"It's just as lame as it sounds," he admits. "My mom was a big outdoors person, we went camping whenever we could."

"To go see the stars?" Skye asks.

"Yeah. And fishing. I was horrible at it. I think mom was trying to be a typical father as well as a mother. That's the thing fathers do, right? Fishing. It never occurred to either of us to stop even though we _both_ hated it."

"That's a horrible birthday story, Coulson. Terrible."

"It was great," he says. "After that one it was never really the same. Birthdays are for kids."

Skye looks down again, in the same manner as before, now it's her turn to get pensive as well. Coulson figures that, from her point of view, maybe not even kids get good birthdays. He should be grateful he got a few.

Without any of them deciding it, or voicing it, but seemingly out of some synchrony between them, they walk back to the car in easy silence. People are leaving the market as well, going back to their homes. They are going back to Lola.

"Did you have fun?" Skye asks when they get there, like a worried mother.

"It was nice."

She raps her fingers across the car door.

"I was thinking, now that Mack has finished the repairs, maybe Lola can take us home. I mean, obviously, but i mean _flying_. She'll be there in a moment."

"That's a good idea."

She purses her lips. "Wanna drive?"

"I think you'd better stick with it."

"Come on, Lola flies herself," Skye insists. "You can manage with just one hand."

"It's not that," he says. Skye arches her eyebrow, not believing him. "It's my birthday, I think I'd rather just relax and let you drive me."

And he does that.

Skye knows what she is doing, and she goes really fast, just like Coulson likes it when he is himself driving. It's perfect. Lola is perfect. Mack fixed her and now she's like new. Better even. And Coulson shouldn't feel uneasy about it, about Lola getting _fixed_ , but he does. He pushes it away, though. He closes his eyes for a moment, the wind against his face, and he lets Skye drive him home.

 

+

 

"Told you, in a moment," Skye says when they touch down in the Playground's garage.

Coulson feels a bit heartbroken that it's over so soon.

"Birthday's over," she continues. "It wasn't that bad, was it."

He doesn't reply, suddenly gripped by something he had been too scared to name before. Skye takes his struggling smile as agreement and opens the door on her side and gestures to get out.

"Skye," he calls.

She stops her movement, turns around and lets the door fall closed again.

"Yeah?"

Coulson leans over and presses his mouth against hers softly.

She still has this slight taste of mustard when he kisses her.

It's absurd, what he is doing. Wrong possibly. Mainly absurd. But the whole day had felt more like a date than a birthday celebration, and he had felt normal instead of old, and possible instead of done.

It's a soft, brief kiss, gone in a heartbeat just like the afternoon. 

When he pulls away Skye's eyes are understandably wide.

"What was that for?" she asks.

She doesn't sound too shocked, and she doesn't sound alarmed or disgusted. Just curious. Coulson was prepared for anything else. Even if he didn't think this through he was still prepared. 

"Can we consider this part of my birthday present?" he asks, softly, begging if he has to. He doesn't want to ruin things with Skye because of a sudden, selfish whim.

"Can we not do that?" she says. "Can we just say you kissed me because you wanted to?"

Coulson nods, too shocked to do anything else.

"I did want to," he blurts, because godamnit she has to _know_. He never tells her anything, not the important stuff, but she has to know this.

Her expression lights up. God, it's like being stabbed in the heart again, Coulson thinks.

"Even if things are a mess right now and we're both dealing with incredibly painful issues and it's probably not the best moment to – to _whatever_ this is?" she asks. "Even so?"

"I don't really care about any that," he tells her, in all honestly. And it is impulsive and it is selfish and it is exactly what Skye wants to hear.

She smiles broadly. "I don't either."

She moves across and brings their mouths together again.

Coulson curls his fingers around the edge of the leather seat, bracing himself. The shock of someone kissing him, after all this time.

Skye pushes her tongue against his, taking charge, deepening the kiss immediately. He's happy to let her guide him, not sure if he's too rusty for this. Skye curls her fingers gently around the collar of his shirt and he can feel her thumb scraping sweetly along the curve of his neck. He can hardly believe this is happening. He has to force himself to believe it, remind himself to kiss her back instead of just standing there, stunned at this development. He's very aware of her body, of having a body himself – and for many reasons he has spent the last couple of years trying to ignore his body. He moans, low, in relief, when Skye burshes her nails across the back of neck. 

Then she breaks the kiss abruptly.

"Oh..." she starts, looking ahead.

"What?" Coulson asks.

She turns to him again, looking mortified.

"I have something to confess," she says.

He watches her carefully. 

"Yeah?"

"We did organize a surprise party," she _confesses_. Then she winces in solidarity. "Sorry."

"But–"

"We wanted you to spend a nice day, but we also wanted to celebrate with you. You're _our friend_. Of course we're throwing you a party. May and Hunter were preparing everything when I left."

"It's okay. It was self-centered of me not to want one."

Skye nods. "They just want to have a beer with the boss. We just wanted to – _be_ with you."

He feels proud his team considers him worthy of wanting to be with him, but a bit worried that Skye feels like they should be making excuses for that simple desire. They are his friends, he understands that. And they are his subordinates and comrades but they are his friends too.

"I get it, it's okay."

"So like, the kissing will have to wait a few hours," Skye tells him.

"That's fine."

Getting a positive reaction from her is more than he ever dreamed. He has no plan. He has no desire to rush her.

"But they'll be kissing," she promises, anyway, tone like a sweet threat. She gives him a quick, impulsive kiss on the corner of his mouth like she wants to prove her point. "I will make your birthday memorable."

You already have, Coulson thinks, touching her cheek as she pulls away.

 

+

 

The time flies by, even though it's mostly all of them having drinks at a leisurely pace, not a real party. _Organizing_ might have been a very exaggerated way of putting it when in fact all Hunter and May seem to have done is find enough glasses for everybody. Okay, that in itself is pretty awe-inspiring. They are always short on glasses.

He's nervous, anxious, distracted, planning all these things in his mind. What's going to happen to him when the party is over. Half-unable to believe what happened in the garage. He and Skye keep an electrifying, illicit distance through the evening, exchanging almost no words at all, and he hopes no one finds it suspicious. He doesn't care that much. He sips beer slowly and half-listens as everybody wishes him a happy birthday.

He catches Skye looking his way a couple of times, in a kind of obvious way, while she sits with FitzSimmons or jokes with Hunter. He catches her looking with an uncertain glance and Coulson hopes it means she's as anxious as him. He catches her biting her lip nervously a couple of times as she very intently _doesn't_ look at him. It all feels positively juvenile. Is this really happening? Are they doing this? He can't wait to know.

At some point he finds himself playing playing darts with Mack (it's a good thing he's right-handed, ha, Coulson thinks grimly but it's okay, because Andrew told him humor as defense was good in his circumstances, in healthy doses, not in Skye-level doses) and Mack turns to him and says:

"I'm very glad you got to celebrate your birthday this year, sir," he says, a weird awkward way of putting things. Mack is always a bit awkward, in his own quiet way.

"Well, you contributed to it," Coulson replies casually, focused on the throwing the next dart. He misses the target. He's never been a darts guy, and now he has to deal with his new imbalance. He turns to Mack. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, Mack."

"I bet you would have done the same for any of us," the other man tells him.

Coulson thinks, briefly, about Trip, about trying not to think about him the whole night, about how much better this would be if he were here to share these moments with everybody.

"Yes, but I'm not sure I would have been so quick. You were really quick," he says humorously.

"I'll take that as compliment."

"Well, I'm not so sure... you were really waiting for your chance to chop off my hand, that's what it felt like."

Mack laughs with him.

Coulson gets that this is part of why they are doing this, his team. They are worried about him, more than the usual amount. Because of his hand. Because he hasn't gotten a prosthetic yet. He'll say that things have been too busy and dramatic to consider his options properly but he's just stalling. Even thinking about talking on the subject makes his body itch. He hasn't even been forward with his shrink (though Andrew probably noticed). He is still uncomfortable considering options. He's only been like this a couple of months. He wants to get used to idea of having lost a hand before he starts taking steps to fix himself. Otherwise he will always feel that he swept the problem under the rug, mentally. 

"You look like you need another drink," Hunter, appearing out of thin air, sniffing out deep, troubled thoughts as he always does.

"You always say that," Coulson argues.

"That's my one move!" Hunter protests. "Don't question my _one_ move."

 

+

 

"I thought you only played videogames," he says, approaching the impromptu poker game Fitz, Mack and Simmons have organized when they got bored of making Coulson the center of the party.

"We're short a guy, though" Mack says.

Technically they can play this version of the game with three people but it's a lot harder.

Coulson throws a look over his shoulder: Hunter and Skye are on the couch, cross-legged and doubled over Skye's tablet as they watch some video. In Hunter it seems like Skye has finally found someone who shares her passion for videos of pets playing musical instruments or some similar scenario. There's a nice atmosphera of slumber party now in the room, with Hunter annoying Skye by wanting to take a better look at one of her bracelets. Not that Coulson knows much about slumber parties.

"What about Hunter?" Coulson asks. "He knows how to play."

"Hunter can't play," Mack says. "He owes us too much money."

"Hey."

Coulson turns around.

"Skye?"

It gives him a little thrill to be saying her name in front of everybody, remembering when she pressed herself against him and kissed him, knowing nobody around them can tell the difference. Skye seems to be thinking the same, because she returns the private look, like she tastes the way he says her name and would like it repeated in a different context. They have a secret. It's exciting.

"Yeah I'm not allowed to play," she says.

"She's not allowed to play," Fitz says.

"No, no, no," Simmons echoes.

"Why?" Coulson asks.

"She's too good at bluffing," Mack explains dryly, not looking up from his hand.

Ah. That makes sense.

"Too good at _lying_ ," Fitz adds.

"Thanks," Skye says without looking at them, her attention back on the whatever it is that she and Hunter are watching. Hunter is now struggling to slip the bracelet off her wrist without her noticing.

"Maybe we can let her play tonight," Simmons says, her usual conciliatory tone. It's good to have her back. "As a special occassion."

"No way, never again," Mack replies. "I'd rather play Hunter."

Hunter stirs. "There's an idea."

Simmons shushes them.

"Come on. Just because Skye has a lot of experience with less than accurate version of the truth –"

" _Thanks_." 

" –doesn't mean she will take advantage of us. Again."

Coulson looks at Skye once more, amused by her rep among the group. She holds his gaze with some heat of her own. It feels like they are the only two people in the room. Not for the first time, but sharper than ever.

"I bet I can tell if she's bluffing," Coulson says, slowly, rather recklessly.

He stepping over some invisible line here. 

Skye looks impressed, giving him a challenging look in exchange,welcoming him to try.

"Why don't you play with us, sir?" Fitz offers.

He takes second too long tearing his eyes from Skye's inviting smirk.

He turns and looks at the cards on the table. Mack is winning, which makes Coulson wonder just how bad Fitz and Simmons are at this, because Mack is a horrible liar.

"He plays very good pretend poker," Hunter comments, which no one apart from Coulson understands, but no one contests, either.

"I can't play if we play for money," Coulson says. Fitz frowns. "I'm your boss, I can't be in the position of taking money from you."

"Oh for crying out loud," he can hear Hunter protest behind him.

"Well, I happen to think that's very reasonable, very ethical... ethics," Simmons says, supportive.

Coulson smiles at her.

"Thank you, Jemma."

"We're still one guy short," Mack says. He looks up at Coulson. "Agent May?" He asks, very doubtful.

Coulson shakes his head. "You do not want to play poker with May."

Blissfully May is too deep into her conversation with Bobbi, sitting on the stairs that lead to his office, to have heard him.

 

+

 

"God you're so old," May says a while later, sitting with him on the couch and after having a couple of beers. "When did you get so old?"

"You still don't do comforting," he points out, fondly.

May snorts at him. Fondly, too, he hopes.

"It seems like things have quieted down a bit around here," he points out.

"It seems like it," May only half-agrees, as her tone suggests she believes that's when things get really bad. Historically she's not wrong.

He's quieter now, too. His hopes and excitement seem manageable now. Watching Skye interact with everybody mostly normally has convinced him that this is real, that she's not having doubts, she's waiting, just like him. Coulson has been able to enjoy himself around the team once he realized that – that Skye is not going anywhere, that he is not going anywhere. There is time for everything. He can't remember the last time he thought he had _time_.

He casts a sideways look at May. He remembers Andrew's text a couple of hours ago, wishing him a good one, not-apologizing for not being at the party and reminding Coulson that he has other jobs and his life doesn't revolve around SHIELD. It is so strange, having Andrew around again. Strange good, but it also means there's one more person here who won't let him get away with his bullshit.

"You might want to resume that vacation of yours," he tells May.

"Yeah, Drew still wants to bill you for the Acapulco hotel. It was non-refundable."

"It's not my fault Simmons got zapped into another dimension."

"You are the director," she says, with certain vindictive smile. "It's always your fault when any of us gets zapped into another dimension."

Personally he hopes that never happens again. It had taken all of the team's efforts, Fitz's scientific genius and Skye's and his own Kree DNA to pull Simmons out of that place. He's not eager to relive it.

He looks at the room again.

"How's she doing?" Coulson asks.

"Simmons? Still resilient."

And he thinks that's true – his resilient, fierce, wonderful team – but he also begins to wonder if it's not taking its toll after all. Simmons still looks shaky, even today. Fitz has barely left her side since it happened, except those times she and Mack spend having quiet, private, no-one-else-gets-it conversations in the garage. His resilient, fierce, wonderful team who deserve better.

He elbows May gently. "Your vacation? I just want you think about it."

She nods.

"Well, I'd better call it a night," she adds, finishing her bottle, eager to change the subject. It took a lot for her to ask for that first vacation, Coulson is not expecting a repeat soon.

He looks around. Workaholics, the whole. Which is why a night like this is nice, for all of them. He had been selfish, not wanting the hassle, the mild embarrassment of a birthday party. Now that he is in the middle of it, into it (though half his head and all his heart is still occupied by Skye and what happens after the party), he gets it.

"So soon?" he complains.

May gets up from the couch, heavily.

"Bobbi and I have to be on the Illiad first thing tomorrow."

Coulson looks across the common room. Bobbi is playing shots with Mack and Skye.

"Good luck with that," he tells May.

"I can take her," she says.

That's a fight Coulson would pay to see, but he says nothing.

After ten minutes of hard negotiation – and of May downing a couple of shots with them – she manages to drag Bobbi away from the table and towards the bunks.

Coulson himself kills the last couple of hours of the night with Mack and Hunter. Hunter seems to have manage to part Skye with her silvery bracelet and he's examining it like it's the most fascinating object in the universe or he's just that drunk.

 

+

 

And suddenly it's late and everybody is gone and Skye has fallen asleep on the couch.

Coulson's earlier excitement about what might happen between them that night is replaced by a wave of tenderness upon seeing her curled into a ball in the corner of the couch. He didn't think he'd make it this far (in life, with this team, with Skye), he can deal with a little waiting to have more.

She stirs awake when he drops to sit by her side.

"I'm sorry, I was up all night preparing everything," she explains.

"It's okay."

He looks at her, eyes closed, long lashes. When was the last time Coulson wanted someone like he wants Skye? He forgets.

"Preparing everything," she repeats, a slight slur in her voice, dream-like. "Researching food... things... thinking about you..."

She stretches on the couch, cat-like movements, pressing herself against Coulson. It startles him, the sudden warmth, but he keeps very still, wanting the feeling to go one longer, to go on forever. 

"Mmm, you smell like strawberries," she mutters against his collar, unberably intimate. "And Hunter's beer."

There's a lump in his throat when she throws her arm gently over his chest and cuddles up to him a little. She must be really exhausted. She wouldn't normally be this bold.

But it also means that whatever his plans were for what happens next they'll have to be put on hold.

"Hey, you're wearing my... thingy," Skye says, touching the pad of her index against Coulson's wrist, right above her bracelet.

"Oh yeah." Coulson is not sure how the thing changed hands from Hunter to him or exactly how much he drank to consider it was a good idea to go around the place wearing one of Skye's trinkets on his arm. "Do you want it back?"

"Nah, it suits you."

He's pretty sure that's not true but when he is about to tell her so Skye starts snoring lightly against his shirt. She stirs awake again almost immediately, though, pulling back to look at his face, withdrawing that warm hand from his chest and settling against his left arm. Big eyes, long lashes. She tries rubbing them but she looks just as tired afterwards.

"God, I'm spent, sorry," she says. 

"You don't have to apologize," he says.

"Tomorrow there'll be more kissing, I promise, just let me rest here... for... a little..."

She presses her nose against his shoulder, like she's nuzzling it. Her tiny, not-entirely-conscious movements fill Coulson with unbearable and new love for her.

"Coul... s... on... appy birthd..." she mutters finally.

This time is not a fluke, she's deep asleep.

He whispers a thank you anyway.

Coulson leans in and kisses her left eyebrow. Somehow kissing her forehead seemed too friendly and platonic given the circumstances, but kissing her mouth too bold and intrusive when she can't respond, out of the question. Her eyebrow seemed a reasonable middle ground.

He's happy to let her sleep against his shoulder for a while, until he figures out a way to escape from under her weight (not that he has any desire to) or if he should let her sleep here or get her to her bunk. He looks out at the room, the remains of the so-called party, the empty bottles, the deck of cards on the table, darts still stuck to the target, and he feels Skye's breathing, even and deep, move against his body.

Coulson smiles to himself.

It's absurd.

Birthdays are for kids and he feels a bit like a kid, can't wait for the next one.


End file.
